


Enter If You Dare

by CaptainDog



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Face Punching, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainDog/pseuds/CaptainDog
Summary: “Come on,” Rey said. “It’ll be fun.”Finn groaned. That was exactly the kind of thing someone would say before dragging their friend into something decidedlynotfun. Finn knew that there was no arguing with Rey when she’d set her mind to doing something. He was going into the haunted house, despite every instinct in him screaming that he shouldn’t.





	Enter If You Dare

**Author's Note:**

> My other spooky fics are taking way too long to post in time, so here's something Halloween themed.

“Come on,” Rey said. “It’ll be fun.”

 

Finn groaned. That was exactly the kind of thing someone would say before dragging their friend into something decidedly  _ not _ fun. Finn knew that there was no arguing with Rey when she’d set her mind to doing something. He was going into the haunted house, despite every instinct in him screaming that he shouldn’t. 

 

He wasn’t especially easily frightened, but masks really creeped him out. Something about not being able to see a person’s eyes just…set off his nerves. And clowns? He knew that they were mostly harmless theater kids who did children’s birthday parties, but  _ no thank you.  _ Not to mention the jump scares. 

 

“You’re paying,” Finn said finally. That seemed good enough for Rey. 

 

She grabbed Finn by the arm and dragged him towards the ticket booth set just outside the front gate of the faux mansion. Fog generated by machines hidden in the hedges swirled around their ankles. Music was playing from the ticket booth, currently Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Earlier, it had been “Monster Mash.” It clashed horribly with the speakers set up somewhere in the haunted house itself, which played screams, howls, and other spooky sounds on a loop. 

 

Rey forked over the money, and the bored-looking teenager seated at the booth passed two tickets under the glass to her. “Please don’t touch the actors, and enjoy your time in the Mansion of Terror.”

 

They headed through the twisted, spiky iron gates and up the path to the front door. Fake gravestones decorated the yard and swayed gently in the breeze. Finn caught a few of the inscriptions in the spraypainted foam. “Anita Shovel” and “Will B. Bach” had skeletal, plastic arms bursting up from the lawn in front of them. As they neared, they could make out more signs, some with warnings like “BEWARE OF WEREWOLF” and some with legitimate warnings for flashing lights and rules about touching the performers. 

 

A guy dressed as Beetlejuice took their tickets at the door. He grinned with yellow teeth. “Enter...if you  _ dare _ .” His voice came out more Vincent Price than Michael Keaton, but Finn wasn’t about to split hairs. They had to wait before actually stepping inside, until Beetlejuice got the go-ahead via a walkie-talkie that they were ready for the next group. He closed the door behind them, and they were plunged into darkness. 

 

Finn blinked as his eyes adjusted. The floor was lined with bluish lights, and there was a person standing in a corner with a flashlight pointed down. She was oddly out of costume. The group headed towards her and the hallway she stood next to. They all crowded close to each other. Nothing had even happened yet, but the atmosphere was undeniably tense. 

 

They started down a long hallway with creepy candelabras on the wall in between caricature portraits of Addams family knockoffs. He startled when one of the portraits growled at him, instinctively stepping closer to Rey. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a painting, it was a window with a tinted screen separating the actor from the hallway. Finn had to admit, that was a pretty good trick. They continued on to the dining room. 

 

A gruesome table was set, plates heaping with body parts, bugs, and snakes. Most of the figures seated around it were clearly fake, monster masks put on scarecrows. It was easy to pick out the couple of actors sitting and waiting for their visitors. One of them, with deranged makeup and hair with far too much gel in it, started to eat from their bowl. Finn recognized gummy worms in chocolate pudding. Crushed oreos, too. Hmm. It actually didn’t look bad. 

 

The other actor rose from the table. He advanced on the group in bloodstained overalls, an oversized butcher knife in his hand. Someone in the group shrieked, but Finn could see the tape on the floor separating the scene from the audience’s pathway. Besides, the knife was obviously plastic. A real knife was probably a liability. He glanced at Rey. She was grinning widely, clearly feeding off of this atmosphere. Her fists were clenched, though. 

 

The butcher followed the group all the way to the next door, grunting and brandishing his knife. He never crossed the line of tape, except to reach out comically slowly towards them. 

 

The next room was a child’s bedroom. Finn rolled his eyes. It wouldn’t be complete without creepy children, would it? They even had a music box playing from a hidden speaker. Spiders hung from a mobile above a crib. When Finn craned his neck into the room, he could see the skeleton of a baby. Another child’s bed was in the other corner of the room. An actor, clearly over eighteen, rose from it and approached slowly, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. 

 

“Come play with me,” she said in a sing-song voice. 

 

“Fuck, that’s creepy,” someone said behind Finn. He could hear her step closer to her boyfriend. 

 

The “little girl” raised a doll that had probably been brutalized by an art student. Its hair had been unevenly cut off, its eyes were drawn over with black Sharpie, and an arm had been replaced with a rubber snake. The actor’s white nightgown was streaked with blood and something green. 

 

“Play with me,” she repeated. She reached out to them, her fingertips just brushing shoulders as the group hurried out of the room nervously. 

 

Honestly, Finn had thought this would be a lot scarier. Rey’s hand was clenched around his wrist. 

 

The next hallway was filled with actors. They jumped from behind hidden doors, crowded the group, growled and shrieked. Finn and Rey kept close to each other. He might have been able to see through a lot of the illusions in this place, but it was undeniably unsettling to have strangers grab at you in a narrow hallway. He inhaled sharply and every time someone jumped out at them. So yeah, his heart rate was definitely raised. 

 

A figure appeared at the end of the hallway. 

 

“Come this way…” 

 

The performer wore a long cloak. Their face was obscured by a Scream mask. They extended their hand to beckon the group. 

 

“Come and see the horrors of this house.” 

 

The staircase they ascended had barred windows along one side. There were fake black cats and rats behind some, and actors behind others. One of them, a “lunatic,” bared his teeth at them and muttered incomprehensibly. Finn grimaced. That wasn’t spooky, it was just insulting. The rest of the group, aside from Rey, didn’t seem to share his annoyance. They shied away from the window and hurried past. 

 

Scream led them into the room at the top of the stairs, and then seemed to melt into the shadows. Probably a secret door for the performers. The room was a strange cross between a mad scientist’s lab and a morgue. Bodies lay on gurneys and a stooped-over man in a lab coat hurried between his human experiments and colorful vials of liquid and dry ice. He turned his head towards the group, twitchy and unhinged. 

 

“Rise, my creation!” he said to one of the bodies on a slab in an accent that was probably supposed to be German. Lightning flashed and a thunder sound effect echoed through the chamber. 

 

The body rose with a moan. He pushed himself from the gurney and stumbled forward. He was clearly really into the part. No amount of ghoulish makeup or tattered straitjacket could hide the fact that he was pretty hot. 

 

“Yes...my perfect monster...I am your master!” The mad scientist pointed a food-coloring-stained finger at the group. “They dare to interrupt my work. Attack!”

 

With a grunt, the creature lurched forward. He bellowed and came charging forward. And, okay. He wasn’t taking this at half speed, like the other actors. And he seemed to zero in on Finn and Rey. Finn took a startled step back. Rey, on the other hand, reacted defensively. 

 

The man was in close range, close enough for Finn to see the line of drool from his perfectly-formed lips. But only for a moment, because just when he got close enough to touch, Rey yelped and reacted defensively. 

 

“Oh, fuck!” the creature cried, stumbling back from the swift punch to his face. 

 

“Shit,” Finn said. 

 

“Oh my god.” Rey clapped her hands over her mouth. The knuckles on her right hand were reddened. 

 

The actor fell onto his ass, clutching the side of his face. Already, blood was flowing from his nose and into his mouth. 

 

The rest of the group stared, bewildered. So did the other actor. He lifted up his eyepatch to gape. 

 

Finn was the first to rush forward. Rey was still standing dumbstruck, like she couldn’t believe what she had just done. And to be fair to her, it wasn’t exactly the kind of reaction anyone would have expected her to have, especially after being so excited about the haunted house. 

 

“Are you okay?” Finn asked. He could see the answer, because now the actor was trying to staunch the blood flow from his nose to little effect. He knelt by the man’s side. “I’m really sorry. She didn’t mean to do that.” 

 

The man answered with an unsettlingly gurgling snort. 

 

Finn dug in his jacket pocket for a moment and pulled out the scarf he’d been wearing earlier. It was a cheap one, something he’d picked up at Walgreens when the weather started to change more quickly than he could dig out his proper winter clothes. He passed it over. “Here. I don’t care if I get that back.” 

 

“‘anks.” The actor pressed the cloth up to his nose. It instantly soaked through. 

 

“Um. Is there a first aid kit around? Or like, a manager?”

 

The group behind them were whispering now, the illusion of the haunted house shattered. Rey had come over and was just apologizing over and over. The mad scientist had straightened up and was calling through a curtain in the back of the room. 

 

“Corey? Corey, can you get in here? There’s been, uh. An incident.” 

 

A few moments later, Scream came back into the room, accompanied by a man in street clothes with a walkie talkie. The man gestured towards the group, which was apparently a good enough signal for Scream. 

 

The cloaked figure stepped forward, arms wide as if to obscure the embarrassing scene behind them. “Come with me. We will continue our journey through the terrors of this house.” He wiggled his fingers at them and led them to the door. “Come, come!” He beckoned more forcefully when they hesitated. 

 

Rey and Finn stayed behind. They helped the actor to his feet. Luckily, it seemed that the blood flow had slowed. 

 

“So, what happened here?” the man in regular clothes, Corey, asked. He glared pointedly at Finn. 

 

“I um. I got scared and I accidentally-” Rey started. 

 

“It’s my fault,” the actor cut in. His voice was still painfully nasal. “I was over the line. Got carried away.” 

 

“I’m really sorry,” Rey said, eyes wide and emphatic. 

 

“Yeah, yeah. But you understand that it’s against the rules to touch the performers. And now Poe here will have to take the rest of the night off.” 

 

“I’m fine,” the actor said just as another spurt of blood dripped onto his shirt. One of the latex bolts glued to his neck was hanging at an awkward angle. 

 

Corey sighed. “Come with me.” 

 

Which was how they ended up in the basement-slash-center of operations of the haunted house, seated in folding chairs while Corey tried to figure out what to do. He barked into his walkie-talkie, asked questions, and just generally tried to get a handle on the situation. Finn guessed that he hadn’t been manager for long. Leroy, the actor dressed as a mad scientist, stayed off to the side, clearly a bit frightened of Rey. Finn didn’t blame him. 

 

Finn, for his part, was mainly worried about the creature actor. His nose was still dribbling blood. 

 

“Can I see?” he asked, leaning in towards the man. 

 

The actor nodded and lowered Finn’s scarf. Finn grimaced. Already a pretty sizeable bruise was forming on his cheek, and the skin had split at the top of his cheekbone. He would no doubt have a black eye by the end of the night. But at least nothing seemed broken. 

 

“We should get you cleaned up. Is there a first aid kit around? Some ice?”

 

The actor pointed vaguely off to the side. There was a table set up with snacks and a water cooler, and another laid out with props and makeup. Finally, Finn spotted a white box on top of the makeup table. He went to grab it. 

 

While Rey talked to Corey to figure out this mess, Finn sat and started to see to the actor’s injuries. 

 

“Your girlfriend packs quite a punch,” the actor said. 

 

“What? Oh, no. I mean. She does. But she’s not my girlfriend.” 

 

“Oh? Usually it’s couples that come through here.”  

 

Finn didn’t miss the way the actor’s eyebrows rose, or the quirk of his lips. Heat rushed into his cheeks. He tried to concentrate on dabbing away blood with the disinfecting wipes he’d found in the kit. 

 

“We went on a couple dates before she figured out she’s pretty exclusively into girls,” Finn said, keeping his eyes averted. Even with terrible monster makeup on and a bloody nose, the actor was way too hot. “We’ve just been really close friends ever since. I’m, um. Super single.” 

 

“Ah.” The man was silent for a moment, and then said, “I’m Poe, by the way.” 

 

Finn looked up and their eyes met. His heart skipped a beat. “I’m Finn.” 

 

“Good to meet you, Finn.” 

 

“Are you sure? You did kind of meet me by getting punched?”

 

Poe laughed. “I guess. Worth it?”

 

Finn opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when he saw Rey approaching. 

 

“So…” She twisted her hands together, a sour look on her face. “We’re banned for life. Well, I am. But you’re probably never going back in without me.” 

 

Finn shrugged. “Probably not. You’re really banned?”

 

She nodded. “I don’t see how they can enforce that, but the manager seems ready to call the police if he sees me here again.” 

 

“Yikes.” Finn stood up. “Poe, you’re starting to swell up. I’m going to see if I can find some ice.” 

 

They both nodded, and Finn crossed the room. There was a cooler with cans of soda in it, so he started to look for something to wrap one in to act as an ice pack. He could hear Rey and Poe talking. 

 

“I’m really, really sorry,” Rey said. “I’m usually...I love horror, haunted houses, all that. It’s just when you got so  _ close _ .” 

 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m the one that got too into the bit.” 

 

“Look, is there anything I can do? To make it up to you? And maybe...get you to put a good word in with your manager so I don’t have to be banned?”

 

“Well…” Finn could hear the sly tone in Poe’s voice. “You think you could talk your friend into getting coffee with me?” 

 

Rey was silent for a moment, and then, “Finn!”

 

“Uh, yeah?” Finn headed back to them, pretending he hadn’t heard the whole exchange. He held a can of Mountain Dew wrapped in a strip of cloth he’d found on the prop table. 

 

“I just got you a date.” 

 

“Oh?”

 

Finn glanced at Poe. He was biting his lip and trying to look innocent. 

 

“Yep. You’re going to get coffee with Poe. No arguing.”

 

“I’m definitely not arguing.” 

 

Rey crossed her arms, looking pleased. 

 

Finn held the soda can to Poe’s cheek. Poe winced, but reached up to hold it in place. The way his fingers brushed Finn’s was absolutely deliberate. 

 

“Well, I can’t come into work tomorrow, not with half my face all bruised. You free?”

 

Finn grinned. “Let me give you my number.” 


End file.
